The commodification of water in Soweto and its implications for social justice
Date
2009-03-04T10:47:41Z
Authors
Harvey, Ebrahim
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Abstract
Abstract
This thesis combines studies in urban, environmental and public sociology and political
science. Adequate and unimpeded access to water supply in poor black communities
arguably lie at the heart of urban and environmental sociology, social policy and
democratic local government.
It explores water as a basic and non-substitutable resource and a human right, the
countervailing pressures to commercialise and commodify it and the evolving
countermovement to these pressures. It also explores the sufficiency of the present water
lifeline and the appropriateness or otherwise of prepaid water meters in poor
communities and the disempowering and alienating social consequences they appear to
have. The contending theses of commodification and decommodification and their
underlying social relations is the theoretical framework within which we situate the
study.
The first section deals with the aim of the study, its rationale, methodology and the
theoretical considerations. The second part focuses on the historical and institutional
dynamics which both inform and are consequential to water commercialisation and
commodification in South Africa. It explores and analyses the technology, ideology and
sociology of prepaid water meters in general terms and the specific impacts they have had
in Soweto, where the case study is situated. It furthermore critically explores these
impacts in relation to the notions of human rights and social justice in the South African
context.
The epistemic heart of the thesis is the case study, based on a critical examination and
analysis of the impacts the limited free water lifeline and the installation of prepaid water
meters have had in Phiri, Soweto. It also critically analyses the problems and prospects for
resistance to these meters and for developing an anti-commodification countermovement.
In conclusion this thesis explores an alternative political, policy and institutional
framework which may become necessary in the future if the problems identified as a
result of the case study are to be seriously addressed by the service provider,
Johannesburg Water, and the City of Johannesburg.